From The Star Tribune: 

"For 73 years, St. Pascal school has operated in St. Paul — now the last remaining Catholic grade school on the East Side, where many used to send their graduates off to high school in crowded yellow buses or in cars with tape decks blasting.

Still, its enrollment has fallen, and there have been worries about St. Pascal's future.

But as of this month, the school has new life — thanks to a consortium of schools tailored to urban families in need. St. Pascal is joining Ascension Catholic Academy, a Minneapolis-based group that has provided centralized leadership and other supports to three other Twin Cities Catholic schools since 2016."

Read more. 

From Pioneer Press: 

"Early in the morning in November 2019, Inna Collier Paske, principal of St. Pascal Regional School, had a vision. “God talked to me at that time. He asked me why I work at St. Pascal, and I said it’s because I want to share my faith,” she said.

Her school’s enrollment was dropping fast, and so was financial support from parishioners.

School officials came up with four pillars for the East Side school to live by: “Believe, Learn, Love and Connect.” Students posted strong test scores, even during the coronavirus pandemic.

And earlier this month, the school was welcomed into a consortium that should secure St. Pascal’s future at a time when many Catholic schools have been forced to close.

The consortium, Ascension Catholic Academy, was created in 2016 with major support from the GHR Foundation, founded by commercial real estate developer Gerald Rauenhorst and his wife, Henrietta. The pair, in life and in death, have applied much of their philanthropy to supporting Catholic education.

The foundation, now run by their daughter, Amy Goldman, sought in 2015 to establish a new model for funding Catholic schools."

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From The Catholic Spirit:

"Founded in 1993 out of five Minneapolis Catholic schools — Holy Name, Holy Rosary, Incarnation, St. Albert the Great and St. Stephen — Risen Christ is best known for its immersion program. With the school’s “50/50 model,” students receive 50% of their instruction in English each day and 50% in Spanish. Every student receives daily instruction in English and Spanish literacy. Grade-level teaching teams include one teacher fluent in English and one fluent in Spanish.

The effort began with the fall 2014 kindergarten class, and one grade has been added each year. Today, only eighth-graders did not start under the immersion program.

That model attracted Sonia Rosas, 28, of Minneapolis, and her husband, Jose, to Risen Christ. They have a 10-year-old daughter in third grade, and a 6-year-old daughter in kindergarten. In choosing the school, Sonia Rosas said it was important that students learn in Spanish and English, that it is a Catholic school, and she heard that people at the school “are very supportive with families and have a deep understanding (of) the culture and the language.”"

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Seed-funded by GHR last year as part of a shared racial equity exploration, the newly launched Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Center at the University of St. Thomas will serve as a central hub to foster and strengthen racial justice and inclusion programs.

It will provide several programming initiatives, including academic partnerships and training with the St. Thomas faculty, racial healing for Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities, interfaith programs and culture in relation to BIPOC communities, and social justice and campus transformation. 

​Learn more.

From February 20th to May 9th, 2022, a TV ad across the Upper Midwest will spotlight the GHR Fellows Program at the Opus College of Business. Aimed at developing business leaders who are ethically minded, innovative, community engaged and globally aware, the program is rooted in the shared values of the Foundation and the University of St. Thomas, grounded in Catholic Social Justice – of working in service of the common good.  

The fellowship program is funded by a $50M grant to UST from the Foundation. Ten students are added each year as freshmen to this highly competitive, transformational undergraduate experience for students pursuing careers in business. Fellows receive full-tuition scholarships to the University of St. Thomas and customized programming designed to deliver leadership experiences, including global exposure.
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Learn more.

Implemented in schools serving predominantly under-resourced neighborhoods and families, City Connects helps teachers and schools provide integrated supports to address the in- and out-of-school needs of students and foster their strengths. Providing holistic support to students facing external obstacles to learning is a core aspect of GHR's Education strategy in Twin Cities Catholic schools and animates the Foundation’s long-term partnership with the program. 

City Connects is a signature program of the Drexel Mission Schools in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. A significant new investment from an anonymous donor will ensure the sustainability of the program by endowing the Center at Boston College, sustaining City Connects programming to better the lives of even more children while supporting the growing needs of communities across the nation. 

Founded in 2001 by Dr. Mary Walsh and her colleagues in the Boston Public Schools, City Connects has provided especially critical support for schoolchildren and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Center for Optimized Student Support, the home of City Connects at Boston College, will be renamed the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children in Dr. Walsh’s honor. 

Learn more.

​GHR Foundation believes education can transform an individual as it did Gerry Rauenhorst, one of our founders, a first-generation college student and a St. Thomas alum. The beginning of this school year marks a point of pride for GHR, as the inaugural cohort of GHR Fellows begins their first year at the University of St. Thomas.

A partnership between GHR Foundation and the St. Thomas Opus College of Business, the GHR Fellows program is an endowed scholarship for business majors. This highly competitive program is designed to attract future business leaders who exemplify the mission of the university and model GHR values: globally-minded, ethics-oriented changemakers who embody the entrepreneurial spirit, and seek to create enduring value for society.

Ten GHR Fellows have been selected to receive scholarships providing them with full tuition for four years, a fully funded J-Term study abroad experience, curated programming, customized social entrepreneurship opportunities and more. In offering this scholarship, the university will be able to recruit and retain excellent students who might not otherwise have access to such an opportunity. 

Representing a diverse range of backgrounds, the inaugural cohort of GHR Fellows is composed of ten students with outstanding track records, of extraordinary promise, who bring with them a variety of enriching experiences, skills and stories.

Tri Nhan Pham, a first-generation student born in Vietnam and raised in Shakopee, MN, said of the program: “My goal is simple: to leave a legacy that my mom would be proud of. I am ready and excited to take on everything that St. Thomas and the GHR Fellows program has to offer.” 

Learn more about GHR’s support of innovative, high-quality education at Marquette University, St. Catherine University and the University of St. Thomas by visiting our Higher Education Initiative.

From Pioneer Press:

"St. Thomas and the foundation spent more than a year designing the fellowship. [Amy] Rauenhorst Goldman said they wanted to raise the university’s profile and encourage others to give.

“We really want to have this gift inspire other gifts,” she said.

The fellowship is based on merit, but Rauenhorst Goldman said first-generation students will get preference. Financially needy fellows can also get grants for room and board..."
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Education is a powerful tool for changing lives and strengthening communities. The education our founders received shaped them, and we continue their commitment to providing hope and opportunity through education by investing in innovative, values-based institutions.

Today, the University of St. Thomas announced a scholarship drive to infuse $200 million into support for students over the next eight years.  GHR Foundation has committed $50 million as the lead gift designated entirely for scholarships.

With GHR’s gift, St. Thomas will establish a pre-eminent four-year endowed scholarship program for business majors called GHR Fellows. This highly competitive program is designed to attract future business leaders who embody the mission of the university and model GHR values: globally-minded, ethics-oriented changemakers who seek create enduring value for society.

Each year, fifteen GHR Fellows will be selected to receive scholarships providing them with full tuition for four years, a fully funded J-Term study abroad experience, individualized career coaching, customized social entrepreneurship opportunities and more. By offering this scholarship, the university will be able recruit and retain excellent students who might not otherwise have access to such an opportunity.

GHR Foundation believes education can transform an individual as it did Gerry Rauenhorst, one of our founders, a first-generation college student and a St. Thomas alum. We are proud to help educate students to be principled leaders who think critically, work skillfully and act wisely to advance the common good. To learn more about GHR's Higher Education funding, contact us.

From Star Tribune:

The hope is to attract more exceptional students like sophomore business major Madison Morehouse. Morehouse, 19, grew up in Rosemount, the daughter of a plumber and a loan officer. A standout high school student, she’s the first in her family to attend college. She visited St. Thomas several times while in high school and it was her first choice for college, but the high price tag initially made it seem out of reach.

“I loved how I felt when I was there. When I was there, I felt important,” Morehouse said. “My parents were very up front with me. I could go wherever I wanted, but that loan would be taken out.”

When she got the e-mail from St. Thomas offering her $29,000 in a renewable annual scholarship, Morehouse squealed in the middle of her high school study hall.

“I would not have been able to go to St. Thomas [without the scholarship]. That is the reality of it,” Morehouse said.
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